Concept of Time by Oyewumi

CONCEPT OF TIME BY OYEWUNMI J.O


      “TIME” management simply means the period set aside to engage in a particular activity by an individual. Therefore, your achievement in life also depends on the way you manage your time. For Instance, while managing your time at the first two years of secondary school education is important and even more important is the last four years of tertiary institution/education where there will be a lot of distraction to take one’s mind off studying. For any organisation to have a successive and effective delivery of goods and services in the country, such organisation’s management must take into cognizance the issue of time management very serious. As an adage quotes “TIME IS MONEY”.
 
ATTRIBUTES OF TIME
    “Time is the currency with which a day is spent” (Ojo 2005). Based on the aforementioned definition, it is germane to state some of attributes of time. Among time attributes as contained in a book titled “FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT” by Olaniran (2005) includes: 

1.    TIME IS A RESOURCE
    A manager must be able to use this resource so as to reap the optimum benefit from it. The one who does not capitalise on time in the face of high competition is a failure. Time is shared by all the competitors; the manager who could manage his time well would have an edge over his competitors. The time of launching a product like a book or service into the market is very crucial, especially if the product is such that is marketed by others in a highly competitive market. Similarly, in educational sector, the time to change curriculum and other educational or instructional materials is very paramount to educational development.
 
2.    TIME IS INELSATIC     No matter how high the demand, the supply of time cannot be increased, the efficient and effective manager know that time is limiting in whatever he does. Time must be effectively and efficiently used. Efficient according to N.A Soneye in his unpublished paper “Management of Time, Rest and Leisure” is doing the job right while effectiveness means doing the right job. A manager who chose to kill a mosquito with a sledge hammer rather than a simple stroke of hand is neither effective nor efficient in his use of time, labour and energy nor is he economical in time limit in the output of any process. On the other hand, money, land and labour which are the other capital needed in any economy, the demand, rather than the supply of this capital market or it could be loaned. So too could one rent, hire or otherwise obtain labour. But time could neither be bought, be hired nor could it be stretched hence time is fixed, it is inelastic. 

3.    TIME IS PERISHABLE
    It is like a perishable commodity such as eggs or oranges.  If time is not spent at that point in time, it is costly, yesterday’s time is gone forever, it cannot recovered. For instance, a school or company with slow decision on a topic or product to sell or launch will suffer the loss once her competitor(s) who do not drag matters judiciously utilise this perishable time.

4.    TIME IS SEQUENTIAL AND HAS DURATION
    Obviously, all the society do not have the equivalent of the category “TIME”. The newer of the southern Sudan according to Evans-Pritchard, the notion we call “time” is not a separate idea, but an integral part of social activities and of ecological and metrological phenomena.
However, several approaches to effective time management by both administrators or managers and students or learners have been suggested (Lulsegged and Nwankwo, 1981); (Blanchard and Johnson, 1982);( Turk and Hawkins, 1984); (Cole, 1986); (Olaniyi 1998). Some of the suggestions are briefly discussed under the following headings; 

•    Recognizing the effective use of time
•    Isolating and eliminating time- wasting activities
•    Personal planning
 

•   RECOGNIZING THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE USE OF TIME

The first step in the process of time management is to recognize the need for effective use of time. If the time available for the lecturer or school administrator or students is well planned or judiciously allocated, there will be sufficient time for him to accomplish all virtually all his task from one day to the next. Once the   school or company head recognizes this fact, he can learn the skill of the effective use of time.

•  ISOLATING  AND ELIMINATING  TIME- WASTING ACTIVITIES

The next step here is to identify, isolate and then discard with, as far as practicable all time-wasting activities. This can be accomplished by the use of log and personal time analysis.

• PERSONAL PLANNING

Personal time planning involves setting priorities on the job and finding the means of achieving it at one hand and identifying time-wasting activities as well as designing strategies to minimize or eliminate them on the other hand. With personal planning, the user is able to clarify work objectives and set personal target for his work. This will assist in focusing on the aspect of his job that matter most for the achievement of organisational goal and in identifying more easily those that should be delegated or subordinates.
Nevertheless, for a quality education to be achieved in Nigeria, the following management tips need to be inculcated in our student’s daily life activities; 

    Prioritize your time .
    Learn to say ‘NO’ .
    Don’t be perfectionist .
    Breakdown your assignment into management chunks .
    Schedule your class to optimise your time on campus .
    Consider online courses independent study and off campus classes to maximize     your time .
    Use an answering machine to field your telephone calls .
    Make time management a habit.

        Conclusively, time is money and one need to ration time in most effective way so as to yield positive result in the process of developing quality education in Nigeria. 


Written and Edited by Oyewunmi  J.O  (M.ED)
First published in 2009 in Journal of Education 
Copyright 2019
Published by Adedapomola Victor (Davlyn Victor)

                                         Endowed …………………. Enriching lifes!!!